As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users are information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes, thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems, e.g., computer, personal computer workstation, portable computer, computer server, print server, network router, network hub, network switch, storage area network disk array, RAID disk system and telecommunications switch.
An information handling system is powered from a power supply system that receives and converts alternating current (AC) power to direct current (DC) power at utilization voltages required by the electronic modules comprising the information handling system. The power supply system tightly regulates these utilization voltages and incorporates over current protection for each of the voltages. To further provide increased reliability of the power supply system, a plurality of power supply units (PSU) may be provided and coupled in parallel so that the loss or malfunction of one or more of the PSUs will not totally disable operation of the information handling system.
As consumer demand increases for smaller and denser information handling systems, manufacturers strive to integrate more computer components into a smaller space. This integration has led to the development of several applications, including high density servers. A high density server provides the computer processing resources of several computers in a small amount of space. A typical arrangement for a high density server includes a shared power supply system, a management module, a connection board (e.g., a back-plane or mid-plane) and server modules, such as blade server modules.
Blade server modules, or “blades,” are miniaturized server modules that typically are powered from a common power supply system and are cooled by cooling system within a multi-server cabinet. Typically, a blade includes a circuit board with one or more processors, memory, a connection port, and possibly a disk drive for storage. By arranging a plurality of blades like books on a shelf in the multi-server cabinet, a high density multi-server system achieves significant cost and space savings over a plurality of conventional servers. These savings result directly from the sharing of common resources (e.g., power supplies, cooling systems, enclosures, etc.,) and the reduction of space required by this type of multi-server system while providing a significant increase in available computer processing power.